Brewer: Arizona is a place of 'heroes'

TUCSON, Ariz. — Gov. Jan Brewer made an impassioned defense of her state Tuesday in the same city where a local sheriff decried Arizona as a “mecca of intolerance and bigotry.”

“Since Saturday, all of us have read and heard a lot about the state of Arizona,” she said. “I want to speak to you about the Arizona I know, the place we saw again even on such an awful Saturday,” Brewer told nearly 700 civil and business leaders who had gathered for her speech at the Tucson Convention Center.

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“It is a place of service, a place of heroes, a place with a bruised, battered heart that I know will get past this hideous moment.”

Brewer said it was impossible to explain Saturday’s tragedy, where a gunman went on a shooting spree at a nearby supermarket parking lot, killing six and injuring Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and 13 others.

But it was also a moment when ordinary citizens performed heroic duties, she said.

As the bullets flew, some shielded strangers from the gunfire. Others confronted the gunman and wrestled him to the ground. First responders rushed to the scene.

Giffords’ intern, University of Arizona student Daniel Hernandez, 20, used his bare hand to stem the bleeding after the congresswoman was shot at close range. Then, he clasped her hand as she was rolled on a stretcher to an ambulance.

Brewer recognized Hernandez on Monday at the Arizona Capitol during her State of the State address.